In complex networked systems, multiple nodes may be set up to share data storage. Preferably, in order to share storage, only one node or application is allowed to alter data at any given time. In order to accomplish this synchronization, locks that provide the necessary mutual exclusion may be used.
Frequently such locks can be managed by a single node of the network system. This single node can be a separate computer dedicated to managing a lock for the other nodes. In such a configuration, each of the other nodes in the networked system is required to communicate with the lock manager node in order to access the locks. A potential problem occurs if the lock manager node crashes, losing the locking mechanism.
It would be desirable to be able to recover the lock states after a crash of a node that was managing the locks so that the locks can properly be synchronized. The present invention addresses such a need.